The Universe Delivers the Enemy You Need
Adam Marek
Comma Press, £10.99

 
ADAM MAREK is a virtuoso of the bizarre short tale. In this collection, his third, he tackles the absurdities and philosophical conundrums of modern life with elegant sentences, bleak wit and experimental flair.

In Poppins, a machine intelligence addresses its owner. Initially presenting itself as a user manual, it veers into a sales pitch before adopting a more sinister role. One of the collection’s most disturbing pieces, and one of its funniest, it challenges our assumptions about agency, empowerment and consumer choice.

Opposing attitudes to AI-based Magic Reality threaten an already fading friendship in It’s a Dinosaurooorph Dumdum. Things get worse when the excruciating small talk of an ill-starred dinner party is interrupted by a shocking revelation. Marek mixes restrained dissection of middle-class manners with speculation about the tension between what is real and what is bearable. It works brilliantly.  

Traditional narrative structure is discarded in several stories. End Titles is an episode of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in which the musical choices of a celebrated scientist illuminate the nature of sibling rivalry, interdisciplinary research, lifelong insecurities and the discovery of a hidden sector of the universe.  

Written as a movie script, Commit. Plunge. Bam! lurches from knockabout repartee to out-and-out slapstick as Leopard Man advises his fellow Superhero, Mr Indomitable, on retaining his superpowers. 

We Won’t Show Any of This is a briefing to an actor preparing for a movie scene. It’s a satire on film-making, a philosophical reflection on storytelling and an object lesson in cramming complex themes into a few pages without confusing or alienating the reader.  

Defending the Pencil Factory has a traditional structure and a weird premise. Martial artists armed only with pencils are fighting off a horde of monsters. Their existential battle is compromised by (a) their access to a single pencil sharpener and (b) the 32 turns it takes to hone each weapon. It’s daft, genuinely unsettling, and leavened with references to classic battle scenes.

Marek tackles emotions as deftly as ideas. Roberto’s Blood Emporium is a lyrical exploration of memory and loss. In Nanna’s Dragon lives are shaped by family stories. Shouting at Cars is a poignant reflection on friendship, inspiration and taking risks.  

There are echoes of JG Ballard and Donald Barthelme in the deadpan desperation of Marek’s characters and his metafictional game-playing. He is, however, a unique chronicler of 21st century alienation, a condition rooted in the cruelties of consumerism and the reshaping of human psychology to meet the needs of artificial systems. Furthermore, his brittle humour is tempered with a subtle sense of sadness. 

This is a fine collection of 21 stories: impressive in terms of both its variety and quality.